I closed yesterday's brief post expressing my intention to have some alcohol while watching a final Christmas movie in this early new year. Well, I did both ─ I had some Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, and I watched the 2014 Christmas movie Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? because I had previously watched the two predecessors of the Nativity series quite recently.
I see now that there is even a fourth movie in the franchise, so it is apparent that I must watch yet one further Christmas movie anon.
Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? featured the characters Desmond Poppy (played by Marc Wooton) and Gordon Shakespeare (played by Jason Watkins) who figured in the two previous films, and I was certain that I recognized at least one kid from the previous movie, but that hardly seems possible now ─ the movies are two years apart, and there is no way that any kid who looks barely old enough to be in Grade 1 can have that same role in movies that separated in time.
The central character ─ apart from "Mr. Poppy" ─ is always the young students' teacher, and each of the movies has featured a different character (and actor) in that role. This time, it was Doc Martin's Martin Clunes.
The previous movie had considerably less appeal than did the original movie, but I thought that the third instalment was even weaker than the second. It was only into the final third or even quarter of the movie that I felt myself responding to it.
It is essential to remove all notions of logic from the plot or storyline to be able to even begin to find enjoyment with the movie. For example, as with the previous two movies, Mr. Poppy was going to have to convince the teacher whom he was supposedly assisting that the young kids absolutely had to enter a Christmas musical competition.
Yet the kids actually performing included at least a couple of older kids, including a rather attractive young teen girl sporting braces ─ how did these older kids figure in?
Also, we need to believe that Mr. Poppy, the amnesic teacher, and all of the competing students were able to assume the identities of the hapless Gordon Shakespeare and his competing students, successfully using their boarding passes to make a flight from England to New York City.
So ... what about passports? Considerable scrutiny is always given a passport at arrival to a foreign country, yet none of the entourage would resemble the photos in the stolen passports. Or was it only boarding passes that were stolen, and Mr. Poppy and his crew all had their own passports?
All of the little kids were able to somehow get hold of their respective passports without their parents realizing?
As I said, the last part of the movie was what became enjoyable for me, and I found myself feeling for actress Catherine Tate's character. She clearly deeply loved her fiancé (as played by Martin Clunes) whose hidden memory loss ─ why the heck hide it from her? That made no sense ─ made him seem nearly imbecilic.
I will probably watch the final Nativity movie within a week's time. (I do so via the apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.)
After my younger brother got home later that evening, I was to watch one further movie ─ 2007's 28 Weeks Later, a sequel to the 2002 movie 28 Days Later.
28 Weeks Later was something of an improvement over 28 Days Later, I thought. Although the movies are related, as far as I could tell the casts were entirely unique to each respective movie.
I recognized Robert Carlyle portraying the role of a pathetic coward ─ the actor is best known as Mr. Gold / Rumpelstiltskin from the T.V. series Once Upon a Time.
Actor Jeremy Renner was a familiar face, but not an actor I knew anything about (including his name). As well, I knew beforehand that Idris Elba and Imogen Poots were to be in the movie, but I had forgotten that fact when I was watching the movie and did not recognize either of them.
I found Imogen Poots' character to be an unusually attractive young teen, so it is a little odd that I did not twig as to who the actress was.
Unfortunately, this movie ─ like its predecessor ─ had atrociously loud sound effects, yet the dialogue was comparatively quiet. In order to clearly hear the latter, it was necessary to be subjected to almost deafening sound effects. Actually, I was constantly adjusting the volume up and down to compensate.
I bloody hate that!
My wife had come home that evening, and I heard her muttering to herself at one point as she headed upstairs from her sons' den area, apparently bound for her bed. I expect that both she and the two lads did not at all appreciate the blaring noise that this movie assaulted us all with. I know full well that I certainly would have been annoyed if I was attempting to sleep and had to put up with this nonsense.
It is already after 7:30 p.m., so I am not going to continue with this post. I will only say that temperatures have been very mild ─ well above freezing overnight; and we even had some sunshine today. I never benefited from it, though, for I remained indoors.
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